Norton at Press Conference with D.C. Ministers Getting Tested for HIV/AIDS (6/27/07)

Washington, DC-Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today made the following statement at "Clergy Lead by Example Testing Day" at Metropolitan A.M.E. Church on National HIV/AIDS Testing Day:

All of us appreciate the many efforts of our clergy, who have been providing HIV/AIDS ministries, conducting testing at their churches and engaging in similar activities. We especially appreciate the dedicated work of the Balm in Gilead and Rev. Dr. Susan Newman. We thank Unity Health Care for conducting the testing today and for doing so at all my public events. We are grateful to Rev. Ronald E. Braxton and Metropolitan A.M.E., one of the great African American churches in the city and in the nation, for allowing the clergy testing to be done on the premises of this historic church. Today on National HIV/AIDS Testing Day, I am pleased to be joined by clergy from some of the city's most distinguished churches. The ministers, who attended my Clergy Town Hall Meeting on HIV/AIDS in November, are being tested for HIV/AIDS to carry out one of the most important recommendations of the clergy themselves. They pledged to take a leadership role to help quell the epidemic here. Among the many ideas offered at our Clergy Town Hall Meeting were: devoting at least part of the first Sunday in each month to some aspect of the epidemic here; a city-wide clergy testing event to help promote the District government's universal testing for all residents; a city-wide day of prayer devoted to preventing HIV/AIDS and to assisting people living with HIV/AIDS; and activating youth ministries to reach young people (65 percent of those between 13 and 19 years of age who are infected are Black).

Today some of the clergy who attended are making good on one of their important recommendations: that clergy set an example for the residents of the District of Columbia, all of whom are being asked to get tested regardless of their sexual preference or sex habits because so many people have the virus and do not know their status. Yesterday, I joined members of the Congressional Black Caucus in setting our own example for the second time by being tested on the Capitol grounds, as we were last September. As long as 50 percent of AIDS cases today are African American, while Blacks are only 12 per cent of the population, and as long as 25 percent of Americans with HIV don't know they have the virus, CBC members will keep getting tested and will take other actions until we drive out and conquer this preventable disease.

Our clergy came together a few months ago in the first of a series of five town hall meetings I am holding throughout 2007. We are looking at ourselves as a community looking for a "cure" for the civic and spiritual crisis among many African Americans that allows residents to forego safe sex, pass this disease to spouses and friends, and fear getting tested. I intentionally began the HIV/AIDS Town Meeting series with ministers because they are in a special position to take the lead in the city's efforts to prevent this preventable disease, to help quell the spread of the virus, and to assist residents in getting help. After our Clergy Town Hall Meeting, we held a standing room only town hall meeting for men last month entitled "A Frank Discussion For Men-About Men-Between Men on Sex, STDs, Responsibility and Community" and we will hold a women's HIV/AIDS town hall meeting in July entitled, "Sex in the City, HIV/AIDS, STDs, Relationships, and Today's Woman." Because the HIV/AIDS epidemic has different and sometimes unique effects by age and sex, the town meetings involve the three population groups most seriously implicated - the city's men, women, and teens, ending with an all-city HIV/AIDS town hall meeting to eliminate the epidemic. The theme of all the town meetings is consistent, however "Safe Sex-Know Your Status-Get Tested."

This city has the highest AIDS rate in the United States. Some of the blame belongs with the Congress, which has placed a rider on D.C. appropriations that keep the city from spending its own local funds on needle exchange programs even though these programs have brought down AIDS rates elsewhere. However, earlier this month the House Appropriations Committee eliminated that rider, and today when the D.C. appropriations bill comes to the House floor, I expect the House of Representatives to follow suit.

This pernicious rider is not the only cause of the city's intolerably high AIDS rate, however. As we hold these town meetings throughout the city, we are grateful to see residents willing to take the necessary personal responsibility for the elimination of the virus. Today, on National HIV/AIDS Testing Day, residents are seeing their own ministers taking the test for HIV/AIDS. Their results will be known within a few minutes of testing and will be confidential. The example of our clergy set today, however, is not at all confidential. Their example manifests itself in the best and most personal way concerning what all of us must do. As in other matters, we ask that residents will follow the lead of the city's clergy to help drive HIV/AIDS out of town.